


Rewrite the Stars

by Stickyouinawormhole13



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Hurt Lance (Voltron), Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Keith (Voltron) is Bad at Feelings, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Past Allura/Lance (Voltron), Suicide, Temporary Character Death, Time Travel, band au, everything is so angsty, inspired by orange
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-08-27
Updated: 2019-08-27
Packaged: 2020-09-27 22:20:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,729
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20415223
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Stickyouinawormhole13/pseuds/Stickyouinawormhole13
Summary: Keith Kogane hasn't talked to his childhood friend Lance in years, but when Lance suddenly dies in an accident, unknown feelings resurface, he decides to try and save Lance in some way by writing a letter ... addressed to himself.





	Rewrite the Stars

**Author's Note:**

> Hey y'all ... I'm back with my bullshit. Angst again hahaha... especially LANGST. 
> 
> I actually had this story posted months ago and deleted it. I decided to revive this with a band AU. :)
> 
> I'd like to thank my friends who helped me out both in the story and with my life in general, you guys are awesome. <3
> 
> So this story was inspired by a couple works such as:
> 
> Falling into Place by Amy Zhang (the beginning part especially about Newton's Laws)  
It's Kind of a Funny Story by Ned Vizzini  
Orange by Takano Ichigo
> 
> Song: Time by Pink Floyd
> 
> WARNING: First scene talks heavily about suicide.

On the night Lance McClain dies, he thinks about the last time he talked to his friends. They had discussed Newton’s Law of Motion while having a Star Wars movie marathon—and well, Lance kept quiet during all of it since _ I want to die _ is not the easiest thing to say, actually it’s almost physically impossible without making it sound like dumb fatalistic humor. Anyways, There are three he can remember. He does not know why he thinks about these things at this moment, at this very high speed minute, but Lance thinks he just needed a distraction from the drum heavily beating in his ribcage.

Lance is done. He is so done. He’s tired of this… this feeling of numbness. This feeling of going in infinite circles. He’s lost, reduced to a wandering snot-nosed child pursuing a dream too far to reach. 

He turns up the radio station. It plays a familiar song. The rosary hanging on his rear mirror seems to mock him. He resists the urge to rip it off. Things don’t change just like God’s words and the bible verses. Things don’t go to plan. Things don’t change like the earth’s gravity or like misery, like pain. Nothing changes and it’s fucking bullshit and Lance is so sick of this. The constant feeling of being so insignificant.

He controls his breathing, bites his fist, and tries to remember the Laws of Motion.

The first law states that a body at rest will remain at rest and a body in motion will remain in motion with a constant velocity unless acted upon by an external force.

Lance is driving his car at a very high speed and if he hits something, let’s say a tree, then the car will come to a stop, but he will keep moving forward. That’s what his mother used to say, _ Keep moving forward, Mijo. Things will become better. _

But things did not get better, and that is why he now finds himself thinking about the Second Law of Motion.

The second law explains how the velocity of an object changes when it is subjected to an external force. The more mass the object has, the more potential energy has to be used to move it. The more force, the more acceleration.

And so Lance pushes the pedal harder, not minding the speed meter to his right. The arrow is blurry because Lance has been crying for awhile now. The rims of his eyes are burning on the brink of tears, cheeks blotchy and red. _ Stupid, stupid boy. Dreams? What are you talking about? _

Third law states that for every action in nature, there is an equal and opposite reaction.

He doesn’t care much about that, so he stops his thinking. He ignores the buzzing of his cellphone on his dashboard. Putting those first two laws into practice, he swerves his 1968 Mustang off the road.

…

> _ Tired of lying in the sunshine staying home to watch the rain _
> 
> _ And you are young and life is long and there is time to kill today _
> 
> _ And then one day you find ten years have got behind you _
> 
> _ No one told you when to run, you missed the starting gun _

...

As he lies down on the grass, shattered glass embedded into his skin, and blood around him, he looks up and sees the sky again. He cries again, again, and again. It’s really beautiful. The sky is lit up with a million stars. It reminds him of his niece’s paintings, white acrylic paint on a dark navy sky. She says his eyes are that of blue night sky. _ Water doesn’t really have a color, it’s more of a reflection of the sky like some kind of huge mirror. _But he doesn’t see blue in the sky anymore, it’s pitch black scattered with small twinkling lights. It’s still beautiful, but he wishes that the ocean could have been the last thing he’d seen before everything fades to an even darker black.

Lance had forgotten how blue the ocean really was, and now it is too late to change his choices.

His choices seem irrelevant now. Lance was just another thorn in someone else’s side. A burden to be put upon shoulders. He can’t do this anymore, he can’t live up to people’s expectations, can’t stop himself from suffocating in this god forsaken town.

And he’s such a shitty driver, so of course people are going to think of this as an accident. No one really knows what Lance truly feels, no one cares. Their words were just flimsy promises and empty words. No one gave a crap about Lance. And why should they? What has Lance done for them? _ God _, sometimes he’s such an annoying hypocrite. He’s done the exact same things. 

He’s never going to amount to anything, is he? The whole thing of being destined for greatness is all bullshit. He’s never been a believer of that. 

He gazes heavenwards into the sky. His tears drying on his rouge cheeks. The crying has stopped, Lance can’t feel anything but numbness. That’s good because things were starting to hurt too much.

A shooting star trails its fiery path across the darkness, and he whispers a wish. A quiet voice slipping through cracked lips. 

He pauses.

Every time a star falls, a shooting star is born. A wish is then made, but only at the cost of the star’s life. So, maybe, everytime someone wishes, everytime a wish is whispered, uttered into the cold air through chapped lips and cigarette smoke, through childish wonder and gapped teeth, a dream come true, and something else falls. 

He laughs quietly and then shakily lifts his arms to rest against his chest, hugging himself. The small quiet laughter breaks the silence, but that is the only sound he could make. His voice too feeble to go into hysterics. He hugged himself tighter, trying to keep himself warm despite the cold seeping into his body, into his soul. His ribs creak brokenly and blood trails down in ribbons and puddles to the ground. Lance has dropped an hourglass before and it looked like this, except the sand was blood and time became meaningless.

His chuckles die down, smiling faintly to himself, wondering how many stars would die tonight. Who cares if one more light goes out in this sky of a million stars? Who really cares if someone else’s time runs out, just for someone else’s moment? 

People say Lance’s light has gone, flickered into a dim light until disappearing completely. 

Inhaling is becoming an exceedingly difficult task. The sound of cars rushing past him grow farther and farther away, the stars slowly dimming each second, the world slowly going out of focus like a camera dying, or like a TV suddenly unplugged.

Lance still doesn’t understand Newton’s Law of Motion, not completely. He still doesn’t get how it is still stuck in his head despite Lance quite literally bleeding to death. People say your life flashes through your eyes when you’re dying. He doesn’t. He’s just looking at stupid stars. He has the inexplicable urge to get to his feet and leap up into the sky, chasing those dumb stars. It was his dream to redefine the world, to rewrite the stars. In this moment, he realizes what death really means. He won’t be able to catch the stars, to realign them, to create constellations of his own. 

Isaac _ fucking _ Newton pops back into his mind. He doesn’t know why he’s pissed about this while he’s about to die. Inertia, force, mass, gravity, equal and opposite reactions still don’t fit together in his brain. It’s like a misplaced piece is forcing its way into his jigsaw puzzle of a mind.

And when it gets harder to open his eyes, so much so that even blinking hurts, he releases the need to understand, and everything falls into one realization. 

Every action is an interaction. Everything he has ever done has led to something else, into different moments, and then to another something else. All of it ends right here, at the bottom of a hill. The grass feels soft and gentle underneath him, the sound of the heavy rain pouring sound relaxing to his ears. 

He feels himself pulling away. His life’s threads unraveling, snapping loose.

And then he closes his eyes.

And maybe, things might change for him.

…

Funerals are a lot like Graduations. A mess of tears, reminiscence, and fear. 

Lance McClain’s isn’t any different.

It was weird to be reunited with his high school classmates again so early after the departure of each other. In those past months, he has already distanced himself away from his classmates so much, from their bright futures, their proud families, and their nitpicking over class schedules and excitement over roommate assignments. To be honest, high school was a fucking joke to Keith. It's kind of a surprise why he hadn't dropped out then.

He was not encouraged by anyone to do well in school, and he’s never even had the thought of college cross his mind. Shiro does though, tries to casually coax him into it because Keith is clever and smart enough to get a full ride scholarship to an elite school. But the thought makes him nauseous, the thought of trying to learn, to have good grades and become valedictorian, and to finish college with a degree that stood out above the rest. It makes him uncomfortable and anxious and depressed and Shiro sees that, and always drops the subject so hurriedly that sometimes Keith wonders if it hurts Shiro more than it hurts himself.

In high school, he’d always been an outcast among his peers. It was like trying to find what didn’t seem right in the picture, and that was Keith. Misplaced and misunderstood Keith. The short separation from his ex classmates only served to widen the chasm between them. He feels more out of place than ever in this sea of black suits and dresses. Keith doesn’t really know why he came, wearing an old thrifty suit that was so much bigger than him.

But more than anything, the thing that makes him so terrified of the future is proven by Lance McClain’s death. Obnoxiously happy, gangly-limbed, knobby knees, cinnamon and honey Lance. Lance who was clever, motivated and strong-willed, who had the determination of making something out of himself more than anyone in Garrison High: **Dead**.

There’s a heavy sense of depression residing in everyone. It’s a small town. Everyone knew the McClains, everyone knew who Lance was.

Which raises the question: Why’d he do it?

The terror of it all momentarily distracts him from everything. From the tangy iron taste on his tongue, the blackstorm whirling into his mind, the shaking of his closed fists, and the tightness growing in his stomach. The ache residing in his knuckles, his knees, and ankles against the complete and utter uncertainty of the situation.

From those past few weeks, those days of cleaning tables and forcing a smile, those weeks of trying to get by and survive on his own. The nights are always the hardest because he is alone, which is strange because he is very much used to being alone. Now he’s in a dingy apartment with electricity that comes in short, random bursts, due to unpaid bills on his table. Keith is only nineteen years old, but he feels so much older than that.

He feels selfish for thinking about it when he is literally staring at Lance McClain’s closed casket.

It’s still something that sets Keith’s heart into a painful constriction.

They had been friends once. Before high school, before braces and acne and girls. Before the dumb rivalry that Lance made up. He is stuck in the memory of hitting the arcade and hanging around the park, laughing with gapped teeth and pure joy. He remembers the feeling of being anchored with Lance, something steady and tangible to grasp onto. Taking comfort in his red trainers and Transformers bandaids, knowing that he had Lance even when he felt like there was nothing to look forward to at all.

He longs for that little boy now. For his goofy smile and his biting remarks, for the way he used to tease his bowl haircut and force him to listen to his horrendous impressions of famous actors. The little boy who used to make him shitty mix tapes of early 2000s pop. The boy who would sulk when he beat him in guitar hero.

The summer before high school there was an almost unmentionable shift that changed everything. It was about the time his father took a turn for the worse, about the time Keith started doing things on his own and started isolating himself away from others, and Lance was the last thing on his mind.

He doesn’t know what makes him drawn towards Lance now. It’s odd. It’s scary. He’s dead, for god’s sake.

“Fuck, I should ha-have kn-known,” Katie Holt says, throat clogged with tears. He vaguely remembers her telling him to call her Pidge, which is a bit too rusty on the tongue now.

Hunk is next to them, trying his best to console her, rubbing circles on her bony shoulder. Keith tightens his fists. 

Keith doesn’t cry. He is too tired, too scared to have emotions spilling out of him. He keeps the grief at bay by just standing there helplessly, staring at the large family in front of him. Lance’s mother and too many siblings all cry in front of the casket. They’re not old enough to deal with this. Any of this, for that matter.

Actually, most of them are probably not old enough to handle it. Many of the people gathered were attending their very first funeral. It was definitely not Keith’s first time. It’s not the first time Keith has dealt with death. There’s a lot of lonely tears and harsh sobs in those isolated nights. He doesn’t like to dwell too much into his father's passing. The painful throbbing that forms into his chest is a constant reminder of that loss. The numbness that starts from his fingertips, then settling into toes. The ringing in his ears. He knows this feeling too much, but it’s been years since Dad passed away, so why is it coming back now?

There would always be something that connected him to those people he’s lost, a darkness, an uncertainty, some profound need for something that they could never quite place.

...

There is a reception somewhere, but Keith won’t attend. He doesn't think he can stand talking to the other kids. Most of them are headed to college, or have good jobs lined up, or families they can lean on until they know what they're doing. People who are different than Keith. Throwing half-assed excuses to his fellow newly graduated classmates, he leaves to go home.

Instead he finds himself in the park. _ Their _park. It was unlike its surroundings, buildings growing old and tired in neglect. The park seemed to not look any different from before. Just… old.

He makes his way over to the abandoned swing. Years ago, he had swung there, alone. It had been old even then. The chains made a quiet squeaking sound as they swung back and forth. It was an ancient swing with a splintered wooden seat, faded red paint peeling off in chips. None of the other children had liked it, but then no one liked him either. He had been a strange child, quiet, intense, with a steely gaze that seemed to pierce through people. The chains were brittle as he took a tentative seat, wrapping his calloused hands around them. Suddenly, he feels overwhelmed with emotion and tears pricked at his eyes. Alarmed, he wipes at them, but the feeling still remained.

“Shit,” he curses, pushing the heels of his palms into his eyes. He takes a few shuddery low breaths. “Don’t cry, don’t cry.”

Keith bites his lip, gnawing the skin until it breaks into a small cut.

“Fuck, what were you even doing there?” Keith asks. He’s not sure why he’s asking now, why he’s even talking to the dead. Keith’s was a huge believer in spirits, but that boy left the moment his father died and when everything turned to shit. He’s nineteen and sometimes he feels like he’s thirty five. He stops, a memory surfacing into his mind.

He remembers then, sitting on the same swing, a guitar much bigger than himself on his lap. He plays the same four chords over and over again. He remembers seeing a small boy decorated in multicolored bandaids. He has own guitar in his hand. It’s unlike Keith’s scratched up chipping maroon one, this one looks like it's been well-loved and taken care of with its shiny blue paint and flashy stickers. _ Wanna practice together? _

Keith swallowed the lump in his throat. Breathing was suddenly a really difficult task. 

_ Lance barrelled into him, grinning like a mad man. Lance was all growing limbs and pointy elbows. He had something cradled against his chest. It looked like a grey bulky piece of plastic with stickers plastered all over it. _

_ “Look what I got!” Lance said, shoving the item to Keith’s face. The pen Keith is holding drops into the ground. He slams the paper into his chest, shielding it away from Lance’s excited eyes. _

_ “Is this a cam recorder?” Keith said, furrowing his eyebrows. “Hey, stop filming me!” _

_ “No way, compandre! You’re the star of my show,” Lance exclaimed, zooming into Keith’s face. “Introducing Keith Kogane in Mundane Events of Suburbia. Or… maybe one of those stories you write? A screen adaptation of one Keith Kogane’s original works or ooooh! Those songs—!” _

_ “Stop it, you idiot!” Keith protested, covering his face with his hands, trying to shield away from the camera. “I’m gonna look stupid!” _

_ “You gotta embrace it then, darling!” Lance said with a laugh. “For real though, this is fun! Do you think I got a knack for Hollywood?” _

_ “Yes, with your crappy personality and fake smile,” Keith said sardonically. “You’ll make it big for sure.” _

_ “Thanks, Keithy-boy,” Lance said with a wry grin. “I knew you’d be my number one fan.” _

_ They lie on the grass with weeds and flowers surrounding them. Their breath carrying out dandelion wishes. They float like tiny ghosts going higher, higher, and higher until they mingle with the clouds above them. Hands spread high above them, trying to give names to shapely wisps of white. Lance talks the most, mouth moving rapidly like he never stopped to breath. Lance’s other hand grasps Keith’s, palms together and fingers tangled as they gaze into the heavens. They wonder what lies beyond the sky. _

_ Lance knocks his shoulder against Keith’s, giving him a smirk. “I got you something.” _

_ “What?” Keith says, his thoughts were interrupted. “You… you got me something?” _

_ “Yeah,” Lance says, grinning. “I made you a mixtape.” _

_ Lance drops a cassette onto Keith’s stomach. _

_ Something stirs in Keith’s chest. A dark blush forming on his cheeks. “You made me a mixtape?” _

_ “Mullet, now you’re just repeating my words,” Lance says, rolling his eyes, albeit in a playful manner. “Of course, I’d make you one. You’re my friend.” _

_ The words reverberated into Keith’s mind. He blinks. _

_ “You got that new Walkman, right?” Lance asked, bashfully. “Your dad got you one for your birthday. No one really makes mixtapes anymore, but… since you got the Mullet, might as well live up to it.” _

_ This time, Keith rolled his eyes, “Of course you’d do something thoughtful and then insult me. Truly. I appreciate it.” _

_ Lance’s shoulders slack, his smile dimming. _

_ “No, no, I mean it!” Keith sputtered. Grabbing Lance’s hand tightly. “I love it. Thank you.” _

_ Lance grinned. “You’re welcome, Keithy-boy.” _

_ “Did you mean what you said?” Keith asked. _

_ “Hm?” _

_ “That I’m your friend?” _

_ Lance laughed, “Of course. Here, I’ll even promise to be your friend forever, got that?” He holds up his pinky. _

_ “Ah, the most law-abiding contract in the world,” Keith replies, chuckling, but he hooks his finger with Lance’s. “Promise.” _

Keith has his finger in the air, feeling the phantom pinky around it. 

Keith’s not like that anymore. Again, He’s nineteen and sometimes he feels like he’s thirty five. 

Keith used to believe in things. Fate, destiny, power, responsibility. It sounds like something that came out of the Ten Commandments and those creeds. Keith had grown up all of his life believing in certain directions, and maybe Dad dying had served to seal the lid shut on that container. Tight. 

This is where things started to fall apart because Lance used to marvel at chance, at probability, the idea of a chaotic world. The universe is sporadic. Certain things fall apart into place. There’s results. There is no order. No predetermined storyline.

_ “I have to get out of here,” Lance said, frustrated. Throwing a pebble into the lake, it skips a few times. “I could do better than this stupid cow-dump of a town. I’m going to rewrite the stars. And no one’s going to control my destiny except me.” _

The earth is round, and gravity makes things fall, and Lance dies. 

And things come back into clockwork, the world still spins, and Keith is sitting alone in an old park. 

Maybe Lance had some sort of notion about the world.

…

When Keith wakes up, things are still depressingly the same. 

The apartment is as quiet and hollow as it always is. When he wakes up he can feel it, lingering over his skin like dust – a shallow, barely there emptiness that has always lingered this haunted place. 

He leans back against cushion, and closes his arms around himself, distractedly blowing the strands of hair that have fallen into his eyes up and out of the way. It’s an old studio apartment with one bathroom. He’s sleeping on the lumpy couch, permanent dip embedded on it from his weight, and a blanket strewn over him. Keith is still wearing his clothes from yesterday. A white dress shirt too big on him and a haphazardly loosened tie around his neck. The jacket is draped over by his feet. 

Despite all this, it still feels more like home than all the other houses he’s resided in. He has free reign in this place, he can do whatever, no matter how little or insignificant it is. It’s still Keith’s choice.

The letter is still on the kitchen table, where he got the news, and it still boggles him how they managed to track Keith down. The envelope is ripped, letter slightly crumpled where Keith fingers had unconsciously frozen in there action of curling into the paper. 

He sighs, rubbing the back of his too-long hair. He should cut it, he doesn’t really have the money or budget to get it cut by a professional. Keith is devastatingly broke. His dad used to cut it for him, never really trusting Keith with scissors after that incident with the kitchen knife. The sore reminder of that incident is still on his face. The scar over his brow where no hair can grow.

Keith has gained thousands of scars over the span of his nineteen years, since then. Most have faded in time, some are still residing deep in his bones. Wounds that cut deeper than skin, than any muscle tissue. 

He stretches his body, arms raised above his head, joints popping, and he feels himself getting reattached. He swings his legs out of the couch, ready to start his mundane day. He heats up the stove and puts on a kettle of water. He doesn’t really trust the water the building provides, but Keith’s starving so he really doesn’t have anything else to go on.

While the water boils, Keith strips himself from his shirt, throwing it onto the pile next to the couch. He trudges into the bathroom. The desperate need to splash water onto his face. 

Keith runs the water, hands cupped, and splashes it onto his face, the coolness sweeping over his dehydrated skin. He shakily looks into the mirror, breathing raggedly. Keith’s not gonna lie, he looks like a crackhead. His skin is pale enough for his veins to be visible from the translucency. He looks like a chipping porcelain doll, light blue cracks spider-webbing around the smooth surface, lips chapped enough to draw out blood. The water dribbles past his chin, dripping down onto the skin of his neck. The sound is what brings him comfort. The soft pitter-patter of water going down the drain. Like remnants of his old self shedding. 

He doesn’t know what gets better than this life he’s living. For the longest time, he’s been wishing to make the pain go away and now he feels nothing. He doesn’t know if that’s any better. 

He returns to the table, plopping his ass down to the seat as he waits for the water to boil. He slides the paper towards him, flips it open, and reads the words over and over again. It still doesn’t seem so real.

_ With a heavy heart, we would like to invite you to attend a funeral ceremony for our beloved son and brother, Lance. Please come and devote your sincerest sympathies and condolences. It would be truly great for you to come and bid your final goodbyes… _

The kettle screams, breaking his thoughts and nearly tossing the letter out into the window. 

“Crap,” Keith mutters, clutching the paper to his chest. He shoves the letter under a mug, and goes to fetch the water and make himself some instant ramen. He checks the time on the wall clock and nearly wants to hit himself for being a complete idiot for forgetting he had work in less than an hour. He practically inhales the ramen, burning his tongue in the process, and then shoves the plastic container into the trash. 

He hurriedly puts his hair up into a ponytail, kicks yesterday’s pants off and trades them for a pair of dark jeans with rips. It doesn’t matter if the rip grows in size when he accidentally gets his foot stuck in the hole, he could pass it off as an aesthetic or something. He yanked out the dresser, dressing himself into a tank top and red flannel. He doesn’t bother to clean up the rest of his place and just books it out. Time means money. Money means food on the table.

And he doesn’t really have the time to grieve. It sets all the things out of balance for Keith.

.

.

.

The diner he works at is still the same one he and his father used to go and eat breakfast in. It’s an eighties themed space diner that fits some sort of Tumblr aesthetic. It’s why there’s too many pre-teens who hang around taking photos with phones that might cost more than Keith’s rent. He spots some of them lingering at the front, posing in squats or… dabs? Keith’s not too sure what exactly they’re doing. Their outfits look similar to his senile neighbor’s tacky curtains.

Anyhow, the place is bizarre, old, and smells like old tomato sauce. So do the uniforms. Clad in an unattractive purple polo and red apron, a baseball cap with _ The Castle _printed on it in big blocky letters. 

When the clock hits noon o’ clock, Keith is called to table three. He tiredly pushes off from leaning against the counter. He puts on a polite smile and walks over to the woman staring outside the window. 

“Excuse me, Ma’am,” Keith says, getting her attention, “Can I get your order?”

The woman turns her head, blue eyes bloodshot and rimmed with red. They widen when they notice him, and Keith himself feels a spark of familiarity.

“Uh, hey, Veronica,” Keith greets, feeling awkward and a smidge of guilt. 

“Keith,” Veronica says, the name seemed heavy on her tongue. “I didn’t know you worked here.”

“Been here for awhile now,” Keith replies with a shrug. 

“How.. how are you?” Veronica asks, “It’s been awhile, hasn’t it?”

“Well, I’m alive, so I must be doing something right,” Keith says, then kicks himself mentally for being insensitive. “Fuck, I mean, wait, I’m sorry.”

Veronica chuckles a little hollowly, “It’s fine…”

“Not really,” Keith says, wincing. “I’m sorry about Lance. He...he, uh…” then just ends there.

Veronica gives him a pained smile, then shakes her head. “I was going around giving people some of Lance’s stuff.” 

Keith notices Veronica wearing Lance’s signature jacket. A faded olive green color. Worn on the edges. 

“But I found something interesting,” Veronica says. She picks up the box she has beside her, digs through them and hands over Keith a stack of envelopes all collected neatly with a red ribbon. 

“What are these?” Keith asks curiously, studying the envelopes. 

“Those are letters,” Veronica answers, clasping her hands together. He notices they are shaking. “Addressed to you.”

“What?” Keith says a little loudly, enough for a few patrons to look in their direction. “What… for me?”

Veronica nods, her lips making a wobbly smile. “He used to talk about you a lot. Mostly about this rivalry you two had or how annoyingly cool you were. It was cute.”

Keith blushes to his ears, and only manages to let out an, “Ah.”

“I haven’t opened them,” Veronica reassures. “I made sure no one else did either.”

Keith sags his shoulders, giving her a small but genuine smile. “That’s nice of you.”

“Well, you better read them,” Veronica says, “Lance had a knack of telling stories rather vividly. Maybe it will be like reading a book.” 

“I’ll read them when I have the time,” Keith says. 

“Please,” Veronica says, a little desperately. She sighs. “Oh and I’d like a milkshake.”

“Coming right up.”

.

.

.

The day flits by uneventfully, his shift is done, and he’s coming back to his shitty apartment. The car he drives is something he bought from the internet and his highschool savings. It’s relatively a good car, just overheats a lot and breaks down from time to time, but whatever makes walks shorter and less annoying. Keith really doesn’t like interacting with people. 

The stack of letters are on the car seat, unopened and daunting. His fingers shake when he picks them up, nervous to read of what were the contents. 

When Keith bought the car, there was a cassette player installed. He doesn’t mind it. He never really uses it. He doesn’t know who else makes cassettes other than hipsters or old neighbors, but that doesn’t stop him from reaching over to the glove compartment, and rummaging through it to find a particular cassette that has “** _Keith’s Lit Playlist_ **” sloppily written on its plastic. 

He pushes it into the player and reads.

_ “Ticking away the moments that make up a dull day” _

Keith can feel the tears streaming down his cheeks. 

He holds back the sobs that wrack his body. The sun disappears into the horizon. The sky cast a warm golden right around the area. The beautiful red and orange colors of a sunrise or sunset. He felt the warmth through the open windows. 

_ “And you run and you run to catch up with the sun, but it's sinking _

_ Racing around to come up behind you again” _

The gradient colors of the sun and intensity of its light were enough to calm his soul momentarily. The sun was just a big ball of romantic reds and oranges, like some kind of big inspirational flame.

It soon died down into the earth, melting away the saturated colors into darkness. Stars winking out in the distance. There he watches for what seems like hours at the black sky, gazing at its white specks, trying to form constellations. 

Then something shoots past the sky, breaking his concentration.

_ “Plans that either come to naught or half a page of scribbled lines.” _

Then something echoes into his head, a familiar voice from a memory.

**Every time a star falls, a shooting star is born. A wish is then made, but only at the cost of the star’s life.**

Keith gasps as he watches the star tearing a sparkling path to the sky. Keith closes his eyes shut and he can’t believe he’s doing this… he wishes. 

He rashly grabs a piece of paper from the glove compartment—It doesn’t matter if its an old flyer from a car insurance company— and begins to write.

_ “The time is gone, the song is over, thought I'd something more to say.” _

.

.

.

Keith wakes up with a loud yawn, stretching his body. The apartment is as quiet and hollow as it always is. When he wakes up he can feel it, lingering over his skin like dust – a shallow, barely there emptiness that has always lingered this haunted place.

When he gets ready to go to work, he trips over something. The sound of paper crumpling under his shoes. He looks down to find a pile of letters on the floor. Keith doesn’t get mail too often unless they are unpaid bills or letters from schools, but it’s still strange to find _ so many _ of them, especially if they are addressed to him. He picks one from the pile. The words “ ** _To: Keith” _ **written in big bold letters. It has his name on a very familiar handwriting. He rips it open to find a mammoth of text written on it. The first words piqued his interest already and he continues to read them with eyes growing wider with every word. The words are too detailed to be an ordinary prank letter that maybe Lance could have done, but what scares him is that it was his own handwriting. The familiar chicken scratch and harsh pressing of some letters. 

_ Keith, _

_ This is you from the future. I want you to go find Lance McClain and be his friend. _

He reads the letter again, and again, and again. The words burning into his mind. It's his handwriting, it definitely is, which makes everything so foreboding and ominous. Especially when his eyes land on the end of the lengthy and detailed paragraphs that will describe the events like an overly done grocery list. His breaths comes to a stop as he reads the last line. Repeatedly. 

_ I want you to save Lance McClain. _

  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> Pls don't ask me how everything works. :c
> 
> anyways leave a comment or some kudos!


End file.
